ho built the
dining-hall of his castle across the highway, so that every wayfarer
must perforce pass through; there the traveler, rich or poor, found
always a trencher and wherewithal to fill it. Three times a day in my
own chair at my own table, do I envy that knight and wish that I might
do as he did."

LXVIII

THE STORY OF MARK TWAIN'S DEBTS

The story of "Mark Twain's Debts" is told in _The Bookman_ by
Frederick A. King. We are permitted to tell the story in Mr. King's
own words:

An anecdote is recorded of Mark Twain and General Grant, who, in
company with William D. Howells, once sat together at luncheon, spread
in the General's private office in the purlieus of Wall Street, in the
days when war and statesmanship had been laid aside, and the hero of
battles and civic life was endeavoring to retrieve his scattered
fortunes by a trial of business.

"Why don't you write your memoirs?" asked Mark Twain, mindful of how
much there was to record, and how eager would be the readers of such a
work.

But the General with characteristic modesty demurred, and the point
was not pressed. This was several years before the failure of the firm
of Ward and Grant, which swept away the General's private fortune,
leaving him an old man, broken in health, and filled with anxiety
about the provision for his family after he should be gone.

When the evil days at last came, some memory of the suggestion
dropped by his friend, the humorist--who could be immensely serious,
too, when need be--may have led to the task that, in added contention
with pain and suffering, constituted the last battle that the General
should fight.

Whatever the influence moving General Grant to the final decision to
compose his memoirs, it happened, to his great fortune, that Mark
Twain again called, and found that the work he had long ago suggested
was at last in progress; but also that the inexperienced writer,
modestly underestimating the commercial value of his forthcoming work,
was about to sign away the putative profits. Fifty thousand dollars
offered for his copyright seemed a generous sum to the unliterary
General Grant, and it took the vehement persuasion of one who was
himself a publisher to convince him that his prospective publishers
would not hesitate at quadrupling that sum rather than lose the chance
of publishing the book.

When the conjecture was proven true, the General with characteristic
generosity, withdrew the contract f